Monday, January 16, 2012

The Brothers' War - Epilogue

The dreams called out to them and they came. They brought with them their devices and inventions and notes on the nature of magic. They dug up the Caves of Koilos, buried the bodies within, made repairs as they could, and worshipped the ever twitching mechanical arm. When the day came that a doorway opened, Gix beckoned them to enter paradise and the members of the Brotherhood of Gix entered Phyrexia.

...Yotia...

Upon the no longer verdant coastline is a metal box, seven feet by three feet by three feet. Urza opens it up and Tawnos wakes. Urza gives him a moment to get his bearings and then lets him know it's over. When Tawnos asks about his brother, Urza hesitates, then says that the demon had killed his brother long ago and he should have realized it.

The world is changed now, and Urza asks a request of his former student. He asks him to head west and search out the remnants of the Union of the scholars of the ivory towers. Tell them about what happened and teach them the lessons that the two of them have learned. What they have done and failed to do. Help the world to not repeat the same mistakes.

(And reveal that the whole filling the bowl with memories of the land, aka using mana and magic, actually worked.)

Urza says that he needs to go away and think. He needs to go places where he won't do any harm. There are places beyond Terisaire, beyond even Dominaria. He saw it when he poured his memories into the bowl.

For a second Tawnos sees glittering gems where Urza's eyes should have been. The mightstone and weakstone together at last. Then his eyes return back to normal, and he says his goodbye.

"And tell Kayla to remember me not..."

"... As you were, but as you tried to be," finished Tawnos, but he was speaking to empty space.

Tawnos got up and looked around only to see no signs of life and no familiar landmarks, and wondered how complete was the devastation.

And as Tawnos walked inland, he was greeted by the first flakes of snow drifting down a chill wind.

* * *

More!

Oh man I want to read more. Urza is now a planeswalker, and quite a unique planeswalker at that. Whether it was by design, or whether it was intentional, Urza doesn't quite necessarily become a planeswalker through the waking of a spark, but rather by merging with the mightstone and the weakstone.

(At least as far as we know through the ending of this book. If that was retconned later, I don't remember.)

The Ice Age has now begun, and the seeds have been set for the coming Invasion that will span centuries of time within the story and years of development thought out the sets beginning with Weatherlight and ending with the Apocalypse.

Magic?

For a book with "Magic" right on the cover... for a book that was the first original story created by Wizards to represent their game... there was actually very little magic. In fact all the non-human races were fairly under represented throughout the book. This was a human vs human, artificer vs artificer war, and rather than being a detriment, the book was written so well that it instead will always be one of the things that will always make this so special and make it stand out amongst the other Magic novels.

This is the most great book of Magic I have read so far (and so on said the fans of Magic Novels). Jeff Grubb is an excelent author who offer us an excelent novel and puts the fundations of Magic Mithology masterly. Great Reviews!!! Keep on Going!!